Mako Midori

I have a real soft spot for the kind of presence Mako Midori brought to 1960s Japanese cinema, because she never read as just another pretty ingenue to me. Born in 1944 and breaking through young enough to grab the Blue Ribbon newcomer prize in 1965, she belongs to that wild, restless New Wave era when Japanese film was getting darker, stranger, and a whole lot more dangerous, and she fit right into that mood. There's a smoky, slightly unsettling quality I associate with her, something mysterious and a touch decadent rather than wholesome. The camera clearly bent toward her. That she also sang only adds to the cool factor. To me she's a quietly magnetic figure from a golden, gritty chapter of Showa film.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Mako Midori is a Japanese actress and singer born on March 26, 1944, in Taipei, Taiwan. She rose to prominence in the 1960s, earning the Blue Ribbon Award for Best New Actress in 1965 as well as the Golden Arrow Award. She appeared in over fifty films in the 1960s and 1970s, won the Kinokuniya Theatre Prize for her stage work, and is married to actor Renji Ishibashi.

Name (English)

Mako Midori

Name (Japanese)

緑魔子

Reading

みどり まこ

Born

March 26, 1944 (age 82)

Origin

Taipei, Taiwan

Height

157cm

Occupation

Actress / Singer

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aries / Monkey

Awards & achievements

• 1965 — Blue Ribbon Award for Best New Actress
• Year unknown — Golden Arrow Award

Works summary

Appearances

187 (1964–2020)

By year (titles with a known year)

1964: 8, 1965: 12, 1966: 7, 1967: 5, 1968: 9, 1969: 11, 1970: 7, 1971: 12, 1972: 5, 1973: 9, 1974: 11, 1975: 12, 1976: 6, 1977: 7, 1978: 6, 1979: 8, 1980: 2, 1981: 3, 1982: 3, 1983: 3, 1984: 1, 1985: 2, 1987: 2, 1988: 1, 1989: 1, 1990: 1, 1991: 1, 1992: 2, 1994: 2, 1995: 1, 1997: 1, 1998: 1, 2000: 1, 2001: 1, 2004: 1, 2006: 1, 2007: 1, 2008: 1, 2009: 1, 2011: 1, 2012: 2, 2013: 1, 2014: 1, 2016: 2, 2017: 1, 2020: 1, year unknown: 9

Debut work

廃虚の唇

Filmography / notable works

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B7%91%E9%AD%94%E5%AD%90
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6739842

Tags

• Actress
• Singer

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. Works and profile fields sourced from Wikipedia reflect content as of 2026-08-26. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.